


Weakness Thrives in the Absence of Valor

by Rynfinity



Category: Thor (Movies)
Genre: Animal Death, Gen, Mistakes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-06
Updated: 2014-11-06
Packaged: 2018-02-24 07:50:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2573897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rynfinity/pseuds/Rynfinity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"No, stupid," Thor spits back.  It's his favorite insult; Loki dearly hopes it isn't his truest.  "We shall kill it with this rock."</p>
<p>In which Thor and Loki go - unintentionally - hunting.  It doesn't work out like Loki expected.</p>
<p>  <b>Warning:  inadvertent cruelty to an alien animal</b>... nothing all that graphic but it's kind of squicky all the same.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Weakness Thrives in the Absence of Valor

"What do you think it is," Thor whispers.

Loki creeps very, very slightly nearer the edge of the- well, it hardly counts as a cliff; it's barely more than a rocky outcropping. "I am not sure," he says, equally quietly, as he peers down at the mysterious creature a few yards below them. It's too small to be a bilgesnipe - a young one, even - but the monstrous thing is nonetheless terrifying for all its comparatively small stature. If he watches any longer Loki knows he is going to panic. Right in front of his big brother, which simply cannot happen. He scoots back and kneels up, settling back on his heels with the beast safely out of sight below. "Maybe it is a _salamander_ ," he hisses, hands framing his face like big, fanged jaws. "All ready to roast us alive."

Thor's eyes grow big and round; for just a moment he too is a child again, younger even than his little brother. For only a single moment, and then he grins broadly. "Should we kill it?"

Loki hides his dismay under a thick helping of scorn. "With _what_ ," he scoffs. "Are you going to wave your bottom in its face and scare it to death?"

~

His brother had somehow run afoul of their father not quite a fortnight ago and the king – who (so rarely that it is basically) never raises a hand to either of them, no matter how dire their transgressions - had paddled (not just spanked; actually _paddled_ , with a wooden spoon that looked as though it must have hailed from the palace kitchens) Thor's bottom until the normally smooth, pink-white skin was welted and blotchy. All these days later the backside in question is still all manner of bruised.

"What did my brother _do_ ," Loki had asked their mother (after going directly the source had proved annoyingly futile), in an effort to learn exactly what he himself must never, ever do. His own scrawny rear lacks Thor's padding; he is certain it could never tolerate such treatment.

"Nothing that concerns you, dear," the queen had offered in lieu of an answer. Which hadn't reassured him in the slightest.

~

"No, stupid," Thor spits back. It's his favorite insult; Loki dearly hopes it isn't his truest. "We shall kill it with this rock."

The rock in question _is_ a very large one, at least from the perspective of two smallish Aesir boys. Loki shuffles over to it, still on his knees, and pushes experimentally "No way," he says. "We shan't be able to budge it."

Thor smiles. It's one of his dangerous smiles, the won't-back-down sort that always ends with both of them up to their eyeballs in trouble. "I bet between us we can."

It's true. If they both put their shoulders to the rock, they can - grunting and huffing - push it along. "I don't think we should," Loki tries instead. He knows warrior princes kill things as a matter of course. They’ve played at killing for the whole of their lives.

Now that he's faced with the actual possibility, though, the whole idea is utterly unappealing. "We should leave it be. Maybe it will go away."

"What kind of hunter hopes his quarry will go away," Thor asks him. "A cowardly one," his brother finishes, before Loki can answer. "A _baby_."

Young though he may be, Loki is no baby. "Fine," he huffs, which it isn't. "If that's what you want, we will kill it. But this is a really bad idea."

"Oh?" Thor's face settles into the stubborn scowl he dons whenever he’s thinking he might not get his way. "You know this how, brother?"

Loki sets his own jaw. "I just do is all."

"Oooh," Thor mocks, wiggling his fingers in a bad facsimile of casting. "It's _magic_."

"No, it's brains," Loki shoots back, but it’s a lost cause. Hopeless.

"Okay, you baby." Thor puts his shoulder against the rock. "Don't help. You're too little and weak to be useful anyway."

That does it. Loki sees red. He slams into the rock with everything he has, so much so that he nearly goes over the edge with it and has to be dragged forcibly back by the ankle.

The awful surge of fear does nothing whatsoever to prepare him for what follows.

The rock strikes bottom, not with a crack but with a sickening, wet thud.

For several seconds nothing happens. Loki thinks they might just have- won?

And then the beast below them starts to _scream_.

And scream, and scream. It's the worst noise Loki can remember ever having heard. Ever. The sound sends the two of them scuttling frantically backwards on all fours - like the tiny crabs that line the rocks along the river – as far away from the drop-off as they can get.

They clap their hands over their ears, shut their eyes, and wait. Huddled together, shaking in terror, they- well, they wait. All Loki can think to do is to ask himself, over and over, _what in the Nine have we done?_

Time crawls ever onward but the hideous shrieking does not abate. That said, the sound does (perhaps worse) grow increasingly hoarse and ruined over time. He and his brother – hands still over their ears – sit and stare at one another, wide-eyed and horrified. Loki can no longer think straight. In fact, he cannot think at all. It’s even hard to breathe.

~

Eventually Thor shifts. “Can we get by it, do you think,” he yells over the din, his mouth practically _in_ Loki’s ear. The sun is getting low in the sky. Someone will come looking for them soon, if they do not make their way back to the palace, and things will end- even more badly.

Loki swallows hard. One of them has to be brave, and apparently this time it is going to have to be him. He inches his way towards the edge, bit by tiny bit.

When he gets there, though, he simply can’t do it. He can’t look at- at what they’ve let happen. What they’ve caused. The air that rises up to meet him smells rusty, like blood. He gags and has to turn away, hands pressed over his mouth and tears streaking down his cheeks.

~

They’re very nearly late for supper, shadows grown long around them and dusk fallen, by the time the beast is finally silent. “Do you think it is finally dead,” Thor asks softly after several minutes of quiet.

Loki shrugs.

They follow the same path down that they made use of on the way up, moving with careful stealth. Just in case the monster isn’t dead, but only resting.

When they get to the bottom, faces averted and noses pinched closed against the stench, they flee.

~

“Did you boys have fun on your adventure,” their mother asks them shortly after they arrive – late, dirty, and (at least in Loki’s case) far too shaken up to be the least bit hungry – at the table.

“Uh huh,” they both say, nodding in unison.

Queen Frigga doesn’t press. She doesn’t ask them why they are ragged and smudged. From the look on her face, though, they _know_. They’ve gotten away with nothing; she sees straight through them.

Their little world will never be the same.

~

Later that night, when the two brothers lie wide-awake and shuddering in bed, they hook their pinkie fingers together and swear a solemn vow: _The next time they see a monster, they will let it be._

That, and they will never go near the cliffs again.

Never.


End file.
